


Christmas 2000

by helsinkibaby



Series: The Pieces of my Life [13]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:45:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg visits the Bartlet farm for the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas 2000

The snow is falling lightly, yet steadily outside the kitchen window, a light breeze buffeting the flakes around, slowing their descent towards an already white earth. It looks cold outside, and in point of fact, to a California boy like Greg, it is cold, but he’s also been here before when it was a heck of a lot colder than this, when the snow flurries were been a lot heavier than this. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to complain about it every chance he gets though; after all, there are some traditions that simply must be upheld.

In contrast to the cold outside, the small kitchen is warm and cosy, filled with the smells of home baking and percolating coffee, though not his favoured Blue Hawaiian. That’s still in a basket under the tree, along with several other items he brought with him as a gift for the Bartlets, a thank you for their hospitality in this post-Christmas, pre-New Year’s time of insanity. He is sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for Ellie to return so that they can go out for a walk, talk privately and quietly about how things have been for her this Christmas, well, as privately as they can with the Secret Service agents shadowing them every few hundred metres. It’s the tradition that they have every time he comes out here; she picks him up at the airport, brings him out to the farm while he makes fun of her driving and she threatens to leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. Once they arrive at the farm, he greets her parents and whoever else is around – though today, only her mother greeted them, her father locked up in his study with who knows how much paperwork, Zoey still in bed – and then he and Ellie disappear outside for a long walk before returning to raid the kitchen, their walk having worked up quite an appetite. Of course, on more than one occasion, it wasn’t walking that had worked up their appetite, rather a detour to the hayloft, but those days were long in the past, and even if they had a habit of revisiting them every now and again, Greg knew it wouldn’t be today. It’s far too cold for that.

He’s lost in thought, remembering those days and the close calls they’ve had in the past, and then a voice jars him from his reverie, a man’s voice saying, “Hello.” Greg doesn’t recognise the voice, turns to see its owner, a young black man in jeans and a red sweater, looking at him curiously. “Who are you?”

Part of Greg can’t blame his new companion for being surprised to see him there; after all, if he’d found a total stranger sitting in the kitchen like this, he’d be surprised too. However, considering whose kitchen it is, and the security measures in force around the farm, it’s pretty obvious that he’s not some kind of raving lunatic. Greg doesn’t show his thoughts though, instead standing up, holding out his hand to the other man. “You’re Charlie, right?” He would have known that from Ellie’s descriptions of her father’s body man and Zoey’s boyfriend, even if Charlie’s picture hadn’t been splashed all over the papers during those terrible few days in May.

Charlie frowns as he holds out his hand. “You know my name,” he observes, his features wary, and Greg nods.

“Ellie told me you were going to be here… I’m Greg.”

Greg is introducing himself, but the moment he mentions Ellie’s name, there’s something in the other man’s eyes, an almost knowing gleam, and a matching smile crosses his face. From that look, Greg is pretty sure that he would have known his name, even if Greg hadn’t volunteered it, a thought that’s confirmed when Charlie nods slowly, says, “Oh, so you’re Greg.”

Greg chuckles, a trifle nervously despite himself. “That sounds scary,” he says, and Charlie shakes his head quickly.

“No, it’s just that Zoey’s mentioned you too… I forgot you were arriving this morning.”

“Zoey’s mentioned me?” That throws Greg a little, because he wouldn’t have thought that Zoey would necessarily discuss Ellie’s friends with her boyfriend. Of course, he and Ellie’s younger sister had always got along very well when they saw one another; they just don’t keep in touch, apart from through Ellie. What she’s been telling Charlie about him is anyone’s guess. “Should I ask?”

Charlie shrugs, goes over to the coffee percolator and pours himself a generous cup. “Not much,” he says simply, holding up the pot to Greg, wordlessly asking would he like some. Greg, whose cup is still half-full, shakes his head, far more interested in anything else Charlie might have to say, and perhaps seeing this, the other man continues. “Just that you’re Ellie’s ex-boyfriend. And that most of the time you act more like a boyfriend than an ex, and that it’s very confusing because no-one knows what the hell to make of the two of you.” Greg’s eyebrows climb higher and higher as Charlie speaks, and when he finishes, there is dead silence in the kitchen. “I’m sorry,” Charlie says after a moment. “Was that too far over the line from someone you’ve just met?”

It would be too far over the line from someone who’s known them for years, even if it’s something that everyone from his room-mate John to his mother have been saying to him for years. That fact alone makes Greg tilt his head to one side, chuckling at the other man. “No, it’s actually the best summing up of us I’ve heard in a while.”

“Oh.” Charlie ponders that for a second. “That’s ok then.” There’s another moment of silence, most unlike Greg, who is still flummoxed over Charlie’s statement, and Charlie fills it in by throwing a glance towards the door and asking, “Where is Ellie?”

“Upstairs,” Greg replies, relieved to be asked a question to which he definitely knows the answer. “She’s looking for her gloves; she couldn’t find them this morning.”

As he speaks, he can hear footsteps on the stairs, and Charlie tilts his head, glancing towards the door. “This her?”

Greg shakes his head, because he knows it’s not Ellie. “No, it’s Zoey,” he says without thinking, because he knows their footsteps, or at least knows Ellie’s, and while Charlie frowns slightly at first, his frown transmutes into wide-eyed surprise when Zoey does indeed burst into the kitchen, clad in blue jeans and a Georgetown t-shirt, her hair a mess, but her smile beaming.

She stops in the doorway, just long enough to register that Greg really is there, then she’s on her way across the room to him, enveloping him in a hug. “I thought I heard your voice,” she says, laughing as he puts his arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet before setting her back down again.

“Just couldn’t stay away from you Zo,” he says, and she laughs again, glancing across the room.

“You two have met?” she asks, going over to Charlie and sliding her arm around his waist, looking up at him adoringly. The look is at once familiar and strange to Greg, and it takes him a moment to place it, a lump rising in his throat when he does. It’s how Ellie used to look at him.

“Just now,” Greg says, and Charlie nods his agreement.

“Your dad just finished up in the office,” he tells her. “He’s muttering something about a game of Trivial Pursuit.” Greg grins while Zoey groans and rolls her eyes. Their reactions must puzzle Charlie, because he looks at them curiously. “What?”

“You’ve never played Trivial Pursuit with my dad,” Zoey tells him. “Once you give the answer-”

“Or get the answer wrong,” interjects Greg, which leads to Zoey giving him a knowing grin.

“Or get the answer wrong,” she allows, “He gives you this whole speech on the ins and outs of what you didn’t know, or what you should know, or how the question is incorrectly phrased…”

“Our only hope is to play in teams,” Greg says. “Your mom will keep him in line.”

Zoey chuckles, while Charlie is still partially mystified. “Teams?”

“Couples,” Zoey tells him. “Usually, him and Mom, Liz and Doug, Ellie and Greg, me and Annie.”

“There was one game a few years ago,” Greg says, “Where we didn’t finish playing until nearly two in the morning. It was brutal.”

“Not for you,” Zoey reminds him, narrowing her eyes. “You and Ellie won that game.”

“And your dad didn’t speak to me for two days.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Zoey shoots back, and Greg laughs, holding up both hands.

“Remember who said that.” Greg grins at the two of them, at how Charlie’s hand has found its way onto Zoey’s shoulder, an almost proprietary gesture, and he suddenly feels very much like a third wheel. Twisting around, he glances over his shoulder towards the door. “Where is that sister of yours anyway?”

“She’s just coming now,” Zoey says. “I kinda borrowed her gloves yesterday and we couldn’t find them… she needs to find her other pair.”

As Zoey speaks, Greg hears familiar footsteps coming down the stairs, and this time, he recognises them as Ellie’s, feels a smile spreading across his face at the prospect at seeing her again, chides himself because after all, it’s only been a few minutes since he’s seen her, yet he’s powerless to stop that smile, is relieved when there is a matching one on Ellie’s face when she comes in, gloves in hand, scarf around her neck. “Hey,” she grins, looking to each person in the room in turn, pausing when she sees Charlie. “He finally let you out of the salt mines, huh?” she asks, and Charlie looks startled for a second before nodding.

“Something like that,” he says. “Though there are Trivial Pursuit rumblings…”

Ellie laughs, and Greg’s sure he sees surprise flare in the younger man’s eyes. “Then I think it’s definitely time for a walk,” Ellie decrees, looking expectantly at Greg. “You ready?”

He doesn’t need to be asked twice, stepping towards her. “When you are,” he says, his hand going automatically to the small of her back, then, for propriety and manner’s sake, looking back at Charlie and Zoey. “See you guys later.”

“Sure,” Charlie nods easily, but Zoey’s response is a lot more mischievous, her lips twitching as she speaks.

“I’m not going to have to keep Dad out of the hayloft again, am I?” she asks, her tone the only innocent thing about her, and Greg can feel his cheeks flaming crimson, sees Ellie’s reacting the same way, even though she’s also shooting her sister a withering look.

“Funny Zo,” she says, taking Greg’s arm and walking out, Zoey’s laughter following them. It has faded from their ears, from their minds, by the time that they reach the front porch, and when they hit the open air, Greg, as he always does, shudders exaggeratedly and launches into a diatribe about the New Hampshire winters. He rants as they walk, his hands in his pockets, her arm tucked securely through his, their feet crunching through the snow, leaving behind footprints that the lightly falling snow does little to fill. Midway through his rant, for once, Ellie cuts him off, smacking at his arm. “Cut it out Greg,” she tells him, smiling more broadly than her words might indicate. “You know you love this.”

He should say something funny, something witty, he knows this. Yet standing in the New Hampshire snow, in the cold New Hampshire air, with her bright eyes smiling up at him, he speaks the truth, right from his heart, reaching out as he does so to brush a lock of hair back from her cheek, letting his palm linger there. “Yes,” he says softly. “I do.”  



End file.
